Reflections From a Murky Pond

Sen. Barack Obama preaches “Hope” and “Change” to the multitudes. He stands as a savior of the unwashed masses and offers gifts and glory to them – if only they will grant him their votes.  There is no denying that Sen. Obama is a brilliant orator and has the capability of capturing the dreams of many in the US – but what will he deliver on those promises?

From The Times of London (Times Online):

Barack Obama’s senior advisers have drawn up plans to lower expectations for his presidency if he wins next week’s election, amid concerns that many of his euphoric supporters are harbouring unrealistic hopes of what he can achieve.

The sudden financial crisis and the prospect of a deep and painful recession have increased the urgency inside the Obama team to bring people down to earth, after a campaign in which his soaring rhetoric and promises of “hope” and “change” are now confronted with the reality of a stricken economy.

One senior adviser told The Times that the first few weeks of the transition, immediately after the election, were critical, “so there’s not a vast mood swing from exhilaration and euphoria to despair”.

The aide said that Mr Obama himself was the first to realise that expectations risked being inflated.

— Tim Reid

Read the full Times Online Article

Sen. Obama has sown the wind with his populist approach and his inspiring but insubstantial political platform. Now it seems that he and his advisers are worried that he will reap the whirlwind of dashed hopes, despair, and the rage that will ensue from false hopes and broken promises.

H/T to The Reluctant Optimist

*SMIRK*

Cartoon by Rick McKee of the Augusta Chronicle

I just want you to be clear, Sen. Obama – it’s not that I want to punish your success – I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you – that they’ve got a chance at success too.

Cartoon by Michael Ramirez

Don’t judge Obama by his actions. Don’t judge Obama by the friends he keeps. Don’t judge Obama by his what he says. Don’t judge Obama because if you do, you’re a racist.

Of course if we can’t judge him by his actions, his friends, or his words then all we would have left is his race. Nice trick that! Remove all legitimate methods of judgment and then call – or let your surrogates call – your detractors racists.

Michelle Obama, wife of presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama has drawn a lot of flak for various of her comments during the campaign. She’s a hard-hitting woman of no uncertain opinion and this has caused her to be occasionally reviled for her heartfelt but ill-advised rants and declarations. She does speak truth as she sees it though.

If you can’t run your own house, then you can’t run the White House.

— Michelle Obama

I think that is a very wise observation. If a candidate cannot properly manage and nurture that which is close to them, how can anyone expect them to properly manage and nurture the nation?

Sadly, like all truths Michelle’s wisdom is a two-edged sword that twist in the the hands of its wielder.

If Michelle’s husband can not successfully look after his constituents in Chicago how can anyone trust him to be President of the whole nation? If Barack Obama was willing to sacrifice the most vulnerable of his own constituents to the greed and corruption of his campaign supporters and business partners, how can trust him to be President of the whole nation?

Sen. Obama, talk to your wife; she may well be wiser than you.

We in America seem to have a very sad tradition. It is the tradition of falsely claiming to have been attacked for reasons based on Race, Religion, or Politics. We had Tawana Brawley, and then Safia Jilani. Now Ashley Todd makes three. Here are three young women who preyed upon longstanding fears and expectations of wrongdoing in order to either gain attention or to further their particular agendas:

Tawana Brawley claimed that six White law enforcement officers abducted and raped her, scrawled racial insults on her body, and smeared her with feces .

Those claims were declared a hoax by a grand jury.

Muslim student activist, Safia Jilani claimed that she was attacked in the bathroom at the Southwestern suburban college.  The incident was declared a “hate crime” when local police found threatening and Islamaphobic graffiti written on the bathroom’s mirrors and walls.

Local police later announced that an investigation determined the assault never occurred at all. It was a hoax.

Ashley Todd claimed that she was attacked by a Black man who robbed her and then – upon seeing her McCain-Palin bumpersticker – carved a “B” into her face while berating her.

She later admitted that this a hoax.

There have of course been others who have perpetrated such hoaxes. Three three are just ones who have in relatively recent times committed such atrocities and gained national media attention.